Like summer never happened
by tjesje
Summary: Josuke doesn't know much about Jotaro. He knows he's tall, and mysterious, often slightly aggravated in a way he thinks comes only from years of having to look over your shoulder. He likes starfish a whole bunch. All of that changes the next time he visits, three months later, because Jotaro doesn't arrive by himself.


Josuke doesn't know much about Jotaro. He knows he's tall, and mysterious, often slightly aggravated in a way he thinks comes only from years of having to look over your shoulder. He likes starfish a whole bunch.

The only people he's seen Jotaro hang around are old man Joseph, and then Koichi, Okuyasu and himself, but they're, like, _kids _so it hardly counts. That was also when people were still being killed with enough regularity everyone kept quiet about it, instead of the awkward, stilted calm that's settled over Morioh now.

People talk about it, but in a 'thank God that's over' way. In a 'how scary to think about, thank God it wasn't me' way, instead of Josuke's way, which is bodily flinching while he considers where's safe to get lunch, or walking by his own classroom.

Jotaro doesn't seem bothered. No more than usual, at least, with his perpetually tense spine and twitching fingers. He takes a plane back home like he hadn't uprooted Josuke's life in one summer and doesn't wave through the window.

All of that changes the next time he visits, three months later, because Jotaro doesn't arrive by himself. Behind him walk a tall man in robes and someone with an impressively high flat-top, chattering, rubbing his neck. It takes Josuke up until Jotaro turns to snap at him to _shut the fuck up about airplane toilets _that Josuke realises they're friends.

Jotaro is gently pushing a wheelchair, sometimes jostling it when the occupant of it, someone with the brightest red hair Josuke's ever seen, pulls at his sleeve and points at the airport souvenir shops. Jotaro is smiling, even stops at one of them. Josuke's world tips slightly more off-kilter.

A day later, they're in Josuke's living room, his mom still away for work but home in an hour if she doesn't linger with friends. Josuke doesn't think his living room was meant to have this many people in it, sitting in his grandfather's chair out of necessity but feeling the chill up his spine that comes whenever he does, like his grandfather is still in it and he's imposing.

Avdol introduces himself as an old travelling companion. Polnareff calls himself a dear friend and Jotaro corrects it to nuisance. "Still dear though, aren't I? Oui?" Polnareff sing-songs.

Kakyoin sips from the tea Josuke made them, spine ramrod straight in his wheelchair, though not from discomfort. Jotaro calls him _someone important. _

Josuke thinks he knows what he means.

They're staying a while, Jotaro says, and doesn't say why. Josuke would have asked, but he feels if it were something dire or dangerous, _maybe _he'd be told. He likes to think. Maybe they just desperately wanted to see the sights, or the beach only open for a few more short weeks this time of year. Josuke doesn't ask.

Avdol and Polnareff are hardly ever alone. They're a unit and saying their names separately, with full stops and distance, feels wrong in his mouth. The way Okuyasu not visiting him in the afternoons does, the same unease.

Polnareff gravitates towards Avdol like if he turns away for even one second he'll lose him, like Avdol and Polnareff have matching magnets inside of the palms of their hands.

Josuke's sitting on his porch, legs dangling over the edge, slid underneath the fencing, frowning at his lukewarm drink when he hears the gentle sweep of someone sinking down next to him.

"You don't seem like you'd mind the company," Avdol's voice rumbles at him, lilting. Josuke's learnt, in the short time of seeing Avdol walk around, that he doesn't do many things without certainty. Not things that matter, at least, and when Avdol does them, it feels like everything has gravitas. He pours tea like it's a ritual and talks like he knows things you don't. Probably does, too.

"Oh, uh, no," Josuke splutters. "Go ahead."

Josuke listens for Polnareff's distinctive babbling, looks around, but it's nowhere around them. Avdol chuckles, takes a card deck from his robes. "Jean-Pierre chose to stay in our room this morning. He feels off, and so, it's just me here today."

Didn't you want to stay with him, Josuke doesn't say. What about the magnets, but Avdol simply begins laying out his cards in front of him, and only then does Josuke notice they're tarot.

"How are you, Josuke?" Avdol asks, and it feels like it's not just about today. Like Avdol's not asking if he's happy with the weather, but wonders about something more overarching.

Josuke forces himself to look at his lukewarm lemonade and shrug.

Avdol sits with him until they both get hungry. Reads his fortune, tells him he'll live a long life and draws the ace of cups. Josuke feels almost lighter at the end of it. Calm and lazy like he's been basking in the sun.

Josuke returns from the arcade by himself, carrying a small water pistol he traded for a percentage of his ticket bounty, Okuyasu having gone home to his dad. He nearly drops it in the middle of using it to squirt water into his mouth when he sees Kakyoin by his porch.

He jogs the last couple metres and helps him up and into his home, Kakyoin's laugh light and reassurances easy.

"You have a Dreamcast," Kakyoin states, as soon as they cross the threshold.

Josuke flounders for a second with the strange conversation starter before the obvious answer comes to him. "Uh, yeah."

Kakyoin brings himself through the hallway and is already well on his way towards it when he asks, "may I see it?"

Josuke leads him to it because he can't very well say no, _he's important _ringing around his skull like the inside of a pinball machine.

Midway through another round of Street Fighter, which Kakyoin is very good at despite insistence he's barely played it at all, Kakyoin inhales like he's getting ready to speak, not moving his eyes away from the screen. "How are you, Josuke?"

Josuke's character stands still on the screen, and Kakyoin mercifully circles it, not attacking. He resists the urge to bite his lips, or to fumble.

He slumps a little in his seat, and after a while says, "better, I think. I'll be alright."

"It's okay you're not right now," Kakyoin says. "I get it."

Josuke thinks he does. Kakyoin throws his character off the platform as soon as he's done talking.

They play until Jotaro joins them, who squeezes Kakyoin's shoulder and takes a seat next to them on the living room rug. Josuke offers him his controller and Kakyoin cackles before Jotaro's even picked a character.

When they're like this, Jotaro leaning towards Kakyoin like they're joined by an elastic band, like his personal space isn't a six-foot circle with anyone else, Jotaro seems calmer. Not fully, like there's too much for him to lose if he relaxes, but less like he's a spring wound tight.

Josuke feels maybe one day he'll be like that too.

He thinks about Okuyasu's face when he beat him at Sega Rally and thinks that's just fine.


End file.
